Sky Was Falling

The Sky Was Falling is a diary of the early COVID-19 pandemic from a young pediatric surgeon and mother working on the front lines at one of New York City's busiest hospitals.

In spring 2020, many people were stuck at home, trying to teach their children and learn to bake while news alerts and sirens reminded them of the devastation outside. Dr. Cornelia Griggs lived through something very different. A pediatric surgery fellow in New York City, she was at the end of nine grueling years of training and expecting a big graduation celebration and real time with her husband and two toddlers. When COVID-19 arrived, she at first urged friends and family not to panic. Then mysterious cases began appearing in the hospital and supplies started vanishing from shelves, and she sensed that things would be worse than she had thought.

Out of frustration and fear, Griggs wrote an op-ed for The New York Times that went viral. More than a million people read it, and she appeared on CNN. Here she tells the rest of her story, day by day: the staggering case numbers, the shrinking supply of respirators and the uncertainty about how to treat a new disease.

Personal and harrowing, the account reads with the tension of a thriller. It shows how healthcare professionals pushed past what they believed they could do to heal their patients, and themselves.